


The Goldman Family died together …

by choppedmint (forevermint)



Series: The Road Not Taken [4]
Category: The Morganville Vampires - Rachel Caine
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, I named unnamed characters, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forevermint/pseuds/choppedmint
Summary: Written to the emotions prompt: Sorrow
Relationships: Theo Goldman/Patience Goldman
Series: The Road Not Taken [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558276





	The Goldman Family died together …

**Author's Note:**

> A fair number of the Goldman family doesn't have a name. For purpose of helping people read:
> 
> Theo Goldman + Patience Goldman = Marcel Goldman, Virgil Goldman, Resi Goldman, Clarence Goldman
> 
> Clarence Goldman + Minnie Goldman (married into family) = Aaron Goldman, Aurelia Goldman
> 
> Virgil Goldman + Ida Goldman (married into family) = Jakob Goldman, Patience Goldman Jr.
> 
> \-----------------  
> No one probably remembers the 'mistake' within canon where Patience is called Theo's wife but also either his daughter/grand-daughter ... well, come to find out during my research that there's probably just two Patiences. It was very common practice at the time to name your kids or grandkids the same name as a realities (Arthur Dee's family tree is hell. Let me tell you.) I'm honestly surprised there's ONLY one repeating name.   
> As it is, I took the liberty of naming a couple of the Goldman family (Aaron and Aurelia) since from what I have found they were never given a name!   
> Tagging that was hard ... since we technically know a bit about their characters but they just weren't named. So ... actually working that as 'original characters' is a bit of a stretch, but ah well.

The Goldman family died together.  
Theo had been a doctor for a very long time. Raised into it by his father and his father before him. Skills had been adapted over the years, new ideas coming in and building upon the old. His house was positioned in the city, a family home that wasn’t unusual for that time. Often, line after line of the family tree would live under the same roof, supporting themselves and working for the same goal. And Theo enjoyed this lifestyle. It was quiet. There was always the tension, but it seemed directly outside the door. People came in. People went out. The grandchildren, young but capable of lifting and fetching, ran around. At night the candles were blown out and the building became quiet. Sometimes Theo would stay awake longer, flitting from room to room like a ghost so deeply caught between one thought and another that he was more like light than the candles.  
Sometimes he would be shepherded off into the night and visited one person or another for reasons that caused pain or distress. He felt he was good. That he was a good doctor. The best he could be. He would talk with friends and his family. His extension of himself as much as he was to them.  
Along the muddy road, small droplets of water kicking up from his heels. The water, Theo noted, might have been from an early morning rain. The air muggy with the scent of people and sticky clouds of dirt that was present anywhere there was people. It might as well have been early morning still, the sky was dark with the touch of the lady’s dark grey dress of clouds, blooming out around the city. The streets were busy, full of French men and women alike. And they all were French now, supposedly, now weren’t they? Theo never paid any mind to who was supposedly on the throne but the French had come into Britain and claimed it all the same. So, he supposed they really were French, at least until the next sweep of time brought another ruler. Which would probably be long after he was dead and buried, that was for sure. People were people and this new king had come into power when his own father was just a boy. English and French rolled off his tongue the same as it did his wife’s and children's’.   
He stepped over another puddle, his shoes still getting muddy, though that made little difference when they were already covered. And wet.  
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say he shuffled along, turning his gaze left and then right. Nothing too major had happened in the last couple of weeks. No one that he needed to check up on anyway. So, he turned another corner, heading back for home. Errands were complete for the morning though by midday he’d be needed more of something or other. No matter what he got or how much it was never enough. He just gave up after a while. The whole thing was a pointless endeavor.   
“You dropped something,” said someone behind him. The accent to the lips was odd. It was what caused Theo to turn more than anything else. It was spoken in French but he was fairly sure that this man was not French. It was just a hunch that was betting on the accent. Theo held out his hand, though he couldn’t see what exactly he’d dropped. The man’s hands were empty. “Thank you, sir.” It was a slow answer, a soft nod. He was curious but used to keep moving.  
The man studied Theo’s face, sweeping his brown hair out of his own eyes. He was very pale in the bad lighting from the clouds covering the sun. Someone who wrote, very probably. Saw candle-light more than the sky. There was a very long second, as if several actions were playing out in the man’s head. Then he reached toward the earth and picked up a slim package. When he stood there was a grin spread across his mouth, lips pulling into thin lines. Theo felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end and his hand waver. But all the man did was slap the muddy bundle into his hand and turn away. He was gone before Theo could thank him (whether he wanted to or not). His fingers wrapped around the little package, feeling the corners of the little toy under his fingers. Something all the grandchildren would share. Aurelia, the youngest, was just four. She might enjoy it in particular. The wood was damp and soggy in the cloth now, however, so he’d have to be careful to set it out, so it wouldn’t mold or rot.  
He turned. It would be five years before he would see the same man again.   
++  
Family is a wonderful thing. You eat together, fight together - sometimes with each other, sometimes not - but you’re family, no matter what.  
Even if it involved picking splinters out of your fingers. Theo’s smile had failed a little thanks to the pain flickering at the edges of his brain. “Jakob,” he said with a sigh. “Please don’t do that again.” The block of wood had slammed down into his fingers before the teen could react. It wasn’t a real problem nor was it something Theo seriously blamed him for. But the prickle of splinters against the backs of his fingers hurt.  
“Sorry,” said Jakob, wincing out of sympathy.   
Theo adjusted the block wood, using his other hand this time, and said, “Try again.” Jakob had jerked the block. Theo had thought he’d picked one with limited sharp edges but apparently limited wasn’t the same as nonexistent.   
Jakob positioned an upper peg over the block, slotting it into the groove. The pleased smile on his face was worth the splinters. “Thank you, Jakob,” said Theo, dropping his hands. The teen scuttled off soon after, returning to the inside of the house. It was one of the days that everyone was in. His daughter and sons and their wives and children. Picking another splinter out of a finger the doctor looked over the wall of the house. It looked sturdy enough. That was really all he needed to worry about today.  
As he was heading for the door he noticed someone was turning into the street. Pausing, he looked at them. Because one had turned into three. It wasn’t very unusual to see people but speaking as a doctor who had seen the birth and death of many of the locals in the long time he and his family had lived in this town. And he recognized none of these people.  
Or he did recognize one of the man from several years before but that wasn’t possible.  
The man should have looked so much older by now.  
Waiting in front of his house Theo was impressed as to the set of his own shoulders. "Is there something I can help you with, sirs and madam?" He was mostly directing it at the men, since the woman was hanging back behind both of them. She didn't seem to find his words amusing, however. She sneered at him, lips parting. Part of Theo stiffened, though he wasn't sure why. Then there was the man he 'knew', who lazily looked over Theo's shoulder. At his house. Like the strange man owned it and everything inside. But it was the final man that drew the doctor's attention. He was far older than both the others. In his forties where the other two might have reached their twentieth year and a little more. He seemed to consider Theo's words. Finally, in broken English, he said, "Yes ... you are the doctor who lives ... here?" He waved his hand around like he was indicating a slum or particularly distasteful center of crime. Theo gracefully swallowed down just how much he was offended. It wasn't like it was unusual. "Yes I am. Did you have need of a doctor?" He dropped back into English, though he figured that the man could understand both it and French just fine. Still, he hesitated to move. As if that might set something off. Instead, he waited, hoping the man would leave.   
He did not.  
"I do have an interest in you," was all he said. And then he was walking past Theo but not before meeting his eyes. Part of Theo couldn't respond properly. Like a rabbit when it saw a wolf and all it wanted to do was run but its legs had frozen up and it couldn't no matter how much it trembled.  
And then the man had passed through the door and it was almost like Theo was moving on his own, after him, with his two 'friends' coming in and closing the door.  
The man who was a wolf and the woman who sneered watched. The Goldman family, from Theo to the youngest, Aurelia, disappeared. No one knew what happened. Not many people asked. They never screamed. But the man who was a wolf, the woman who sneered, and the man who didn't age disappeared just like them. But they'd died together, thought Bishop who was a wolf who liked to look into a rabbit's eyes until their blood frozen their legs and froze their heart. And dying together ... wasn't that a gift? To never lose one another? But the look on the face of the one who called himself 'doctor'. Bishop held that thought close. Watching his family die one by one around him, thinking them lost. First the children. Young and confused and naively pleading and crying, with the parents held back, eyes forced open by their own choice no less. Then slowly working into the daughter and sons. Carefully selected. The girl first, feisty and fierce and Bishop had just watched as she fought. Useless. Then the unmarried men. One hardly speaking, so numb with shock. The shorter one had to be held up. Bishop pegged him as the weakest. He almost doubted he'd make the change at all or perhaps he'd simply die from starvation as he shied from the sight of blood. Then the wives and the husbands after and finally just the heads of the household. If the 'doctor' hadn't looked broken then Bishop thought he must have shattered when he was the last one. The perfect family really. The one who would live for each other and die for each other. Bishop had everything pause there. To watch the 'doctor' hunched there, broken. And then he'd let him die too, only to give them it all back again. Each other.  
There had been a reason. Other than Bishop's morbid entertainment, Theo knew. Because he'd driven fear deep into each and every one of the Goldmans' bones. He'd chosen their life and he'd chosen their worst night terrors all in a single day. He doubted any of them forgot. And that had been Bishop's plan. If you knew someone's fear than you could control them. That day he must have sworn and promised everything from the sun and the earth but now Bishop had something far more important. And he'd watched them all dance for him. Above all things ... Theo wouldn't lose them again.

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGIN "Sorrow: The Goldman Family died together...": I wanted to find out some things about when Theo was human and I screamed several times over the research for this. And yes, believe it or not, I do research on the things in all these stories. I like being realistic, even when it hurts. Though I don't think it was expressly stated within the story (I'd have to reread), Theo's family is Jewish. Often times there would be certain parts of towns where they were supposed to live. Theo, in this case, was also only allowed to treat other (as a doctor) who were Jewish. At least, this is what I found for my research. Fact checking is still in progress, so that's why it's purposely a little vague. Similarly, I don't state what year this is from, but it's about 1,000 years ago (give or take) when France and England were a contested area. Can we say lots of maps were redrawn? I struggled a lot with the country placement of the Goldman family. Many of them have German origin names (Jochen, Ida, Minnie) but the others are also fairly up in the air. So if I find more information there will be a revised edition of this story, but for the time being this is accurate to what I know. That aside, it is also pretty heavy. The death of the Goldmans by Bishop's influence is canon, though canon takes place in modern times. It's stated he's to blame, but that he wasn't the one who actually changed them. Another thing I left purposely vague was the fact that all of Bishop's henchmen and woman had Spanish and Portuguese names. And he's from France. Origins were skewed all over the place. Switching it to Bishop’s post-POV was not the intention but it was an excuse to show how evil he was. He isn't my favorite villain in the series, but he is the one who knew how to play chess with human pieces better.


End file.
